


legally blond

by silentwalrus



Series: caveat emptor [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Edward Elric: Real Fake Blond, Gen, M/M, Roy Mustang: Denser Than Bricks, post-canon if you’re into THAT, pre-slash if you’re into that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25350418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentwalrus/pseuds/silentwalrus
Summary: Roy hires Ed as a contractor a month before the spring semester ends, which is a timeframe he is forcibly informed of via the twenty minutes of complaining that precede the actual request. “And since Mei’s here, she and Al started a whole study group, and there’s people in the apartment at all hours and they’re all crazy because it’s exam time and medical students are insane,” Ed concludes. “Like, saw-through-the-roof-joists, grease-up-the-rails totally batsypoo. What have you got for me?”Roy tells him. “Yeah,” Ed says after a long moment. “Yeah, I’ll come in.”
Series: caveat emptor [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790881
Comments: 70
Kudos: 690





	legally blond

**Author's Note:**

> This is not, chronologically, the next ficlet in this series, but i’m posting it now bc it’s finished now yoop

Roy hires Ed as a contractor a month before the spring semester ends, which is a timeframe he is forcibly informed of via the twenty minutes of complaining that precede the actual request. “And since Mei’s here, she and Al started a whole _study group,_ and there’s people in the apartment at _all_ hours and they’re _all_ crazy because it’s exam time and medical students are _insane,”_ Ed concludes. “Like, saw-through-the-roof-joists, grease-up-the-rails totally batsypoo. What have you got for me?” 

Roy tells him. “Yeah,” Ed says after a long moment. “Yeah, I’ll come in.” 

Roy doesn’t actually see Ed in the office until two weeks later, because it’s a busy month by default on top of everything else - quarterly budget meetings, Council sessions and the new mandatory bimonthly research reviews for State Alchemists, of which he does technically have to review himself in order to approve the continued validity of his own license. Self-dealing or no, he still has to complete the paperwork for it, and that means that it’s Havoc that confirms that Ed’s started work - and reports, grinningly, that he showed up looking “unusual” and that Roy “would see for himself”. 

Roy does see for himself, when Ed comes into the office for the first of his own meetings. “My goodness,” Roy says automatically, not bothering to halt the spread of his smile. “Trying a new look?” 

Ed rolls his eyes with his whole face, his familiar huff not blowing his bangs out of his eyes on account of them being pinned back with a surprisingly severe row of hairpins. “Get fucked,” he says conversationally, hefting his crate of files off his hip and onto Roy’s desk. “I lost a bet.” 

Roy’s smile can only widen. “To your hairdresser?” 

“Fuckin’ Mei,” Ed grumbles. “She and Al cheat like _assholes,_ they’re fucking _nightmares,_ let’s just get this over with so I can go home and take the pins out. I mean it - get your pen out, bastard, these fuckin’ itch.” 

Roy is unclear on what exactly the wager was, as Ed is unwilling to say, but the terms are that Mei Chang gets to style his hair as she pleases for an entire month. She must not consider her victory a vindictive one, however, because on surface it seems that her entire goal is making Ed’s hasty ponytails and scruffy braids into something presentable; of course, she could be lulling Ed into a false sense of security, but he looks sufficiently harried by the introduction of the braided bun into his life that this may be punishment in itself. 

That would mildly surprise Roy, because while it’s not quite accurate to call Ed vain he does express a very particular set of preferences in regards to his appearance. Ed scowls only halfheartedly when Roy raises his eyebrows at the most elaborate look yet - four separate braids, an impressive amount of pins, everything scraped up high and away from his face - and growls, “They’re both up to their ears studying, there’s exams every day this week, they say it’s stress relief.”

“Styling you like an unfortunate show poodle?” 

“This is the better option, trust me,” Ed says darkly, from which Roy infers that Alphonse and Mei have well and truly proven themselves suited for a medical career by casting off whatever pretense of human pity they once held and embracing the true nature of medicine, i.e. unending horror and chaos deeper than what mankind thinks can be known. 

It’s a bit of levity that isn’t unwelcome, at least, given the ongoing nature of their daily meetings. Ed is going through a recently uncovered cache of classified Bradley-era alchemical research and summarizing his findings to Roy at the end of every day, usually late enough that they’ve both given up and either found takeout or gone searching for dinner. The content is routinely depressing, occasionally nauseating and wholly ungood; Ed is mowing through it with the cheerless determination of one who knows the end is in sight and won’t drag the misery out for himself a second longer than he absolutely has to. Roy has been paying for the dinners, partly to staunch Ed’s whining and mostly because Ed’s summaries are sparing Roy a lot of time, headaches and likely more than a few nightmares. 

Lieutenant Colonel Ross’s people found the cache, and she personally kicked it up to Roy, and given that Bradley’s regime - well, all of them, but Bradley’s especially - was characterized by deliberately engineered alchemical worst case scenarios, he’s not letting any of it get so much as a door guard that he hasn’t personally vetted. When Ed shows up at his door on Saturday morning with a thick stack of files and a grim “This is the last of it,” Roy readily lets him in and lets it eat the next three hours of his weekend, knowing that they’ll be free of this come Monday. 

Roy doesn’t have the breadth of expertise to do detailed dives on all of the uncovered files himself, but he’s good at determining what needs to go in which category and with Ed there identifying what’s dangerous goes at a fairly steady clip. They end up with three piles - code and hide, archive and bury, burn outright - and Roy prepares his fireplace for a good old fashioned document disposal as Ed finishes taking down the coded list noting what they’re burning. 

Having _some_ kind of paper trail is important. The cache itself proves that, even if much of its contents is speculations on applications of chemical warfare, the development of death at scale. There’s more than just weapons research in here: there are plenty records of human experimentation on prisoners that’ll have to be relegated to Maes’ people to see if they can hunt down any next of kin. It’s not as though they’ll get the full truth, but with a paper trail it can be determined whether the person was officially declared dead or simply missing. Closure isn’t nothing, even if in the grand scheme of things it’s a pittance, the very least of what they can do. 

As Minister of War, Roy has jurisdiction over the defense research labs and the entire State Alchemist program. Under Bradley the post was General Raven’s, and until Grumman appointed Roy it was held by a succession of three deputies, none of which were eager to keep the position given the public uproar that had them and the Ministry of Culture - propaganda - working all hours to keep people from rioting across the whole country. The whole ‘every single person within Amestrisan borders died for a minute’ thing was, not to point too fine a point on it, not well received. Either the state had fucked up and lost control of some kind of new superweapon, which was bad and incompetent, or they had set it off on its own people on purpose, which was worse and malicious. Amestrisans are raised on a steady diet of bullshit from birth, but anyone with half a brain knows the reality of things - the government can and will screw you sideways for anything it damn well wants, especially if it finds your screwing convenient, and _everyone fucking dying_ is more than legitimate grounds for panic, even if it was only temporary. 

The official story sold by the military to the civilians was that of a mutual mystery: a big We Don’t Know What Happened Either, But You Can Be Damn Sure We’ll Find Out! It was even mostly true, given that the actual number of people who understood what happened were quite small. The official accounts are that the ‘insurgents’ invaded the military labs, and _something_ went wrong - something big, so big it caused that massive crater in the parade grounds, obliterated the labs and killed pretty much anyone who might’ve seen what happened.

The demand for answers has slowed down since the initial rush, but the official investigation is still ongoing and some of the more aboveboard lab research from the Bradley regime has slowly been released piecemeal to the public. Most of it is still classified and will likely stay that way for decades; the disclosure goal, after all, is to reassure people that the disaster would not happen again: that there are no equivalent alchemy projects ongoing, nor will there be, and there will not be a repeat event.

Not everyone buys it, and absolutely none of Amestris’ neighbors do, but the story isn’t going to change. If ever there was a time to disclose that their entire country was an artificial livestock pen built and run by immortal constructs for the express purpose of mass human sacrifice, it was immediately after the mass human sacrifice almost succeeded. That moment came and went: Roy was blind, Grumman wasn’t interested, and Armstrong considers any given civilian to have the IQ of cheese mold even on her most generous day. If anyone wants to tell the truth _now_ they’ll sound like a raving madman at best, and even if the populace _did_ believe - what would it serve? Our country was run by homunculi - whose creation and abilities Roy’s pretty sure even Ed and Alphonse can’t fully explain - but don’t worry, there were only seven of them? They’re all gone now, we promise? What exactly is that going to achieve? 

Roy doesn’t want to live in a world where perpetual lying is the best strategy available when it comes to state-sponsored crisis management, but he works with what he’s got. He takes the files Ed hands him, stacks them in the firegrate and lights it all up. 

Ed yawns hugely as Roy controls the burn, his jaw briefly cracking louder than the flames. “I’m hungry,” he says contemplatively as he eyes the fire, expression largely vacant in what Roy’s come to think of as his standby face. “Food time, bastard.” 

Roy judges the oxygen saturated evenly enough around the crackling papers and ends the transmutation, slipping off his glove. “I’ll call for takeout.” 

“Are you shitting me? There’s a whole ass food festival in that park two blocks away,” Ed says. “Did you know about that? The sign said it’s _every weekend,_ April to September _._ Is that why you live here?” 

Roy knows what he’s referring to; it’s not so much a food festival as an entire fair with several children’s rides and attached farmer’s market. On particularly terrible Saturdays he can hear the delighted childrens’ screams from all the way in his bedroom. “I live here because almost no other military officer does,” he says, which is true and also mildly alarming in the fact that it came out of his mouth. 

It’s not like he can’t trust Ed, but that doesn’t give him license to just let random facts come falling out of his face whenever the urge strikes. It builds bad habits. He needs to get a grip. Get his head in the present, on the problems at hand, not go maudlin about how of all the things he’s working to give Amestris one of them will never be the truth. “The food there’s not bad,” he allows. “You want to go?” 

Ed looks at him like he’s an imbecile who shouldn’t sneeze too hard lest what’s left of his brains come dribbling out. “They have _barbecue.”_

That settles lunch. Roy douses the fire, they leave the house, and he is once again treated to the experience of cleaning out his wallet while Ed woodchippers his way through meat fries, deep fried dumplings, sauce-sodden lamb shank and a chunk of honey-glazed pork shoulder the size of his head. Roy, out of some vague intrinsic nutritional horror, tries to introduce a cucumber salad and nearly loses a hand for his trouble when Ed snatches the cup and buries it in the melee. That turns him onto the vegetables, and the slaughter continues with pickled beets, cubed cabbage, zucchini noodles and a spicy tomato-potato…. something that makes Ed’s eyes water appreciatively. 

Roy resigns himself to providing napkins and avoiding the shrapnel, his own salad cup emptied and his foray into dumplings completed despite his distaste for cabbage in pork filling. He watches the frankly unsafe way Ed eats and idly wonders not for the first time if his own ambivalence to food is a result of a lifetime of bar leftovers, military academy mess and soldier rations or a naturally muted set of tastebuds. Could be both, really. Plenty of other soldiers don’t mind the cafeteria food but hardly anyone takes coffee like he does and Chris drinks hers the same way; though it’s possible, he reflects, that drinking from her cup starting age nine is probably a major factor in the state of his tastebuds today. 

When Ed mops the last traces of sauce off his face he immediately turns a predatory eye on the further stalls, the ones that waft of burnt sugar. “Now,” he says judiciously, “dessert.” 

They’ve only just departed from the picnic benches when a familiar voice rises out of the chatter. “Roy? That you, you awful dog?” 

Roy turns, face automatically clearing and hands smoothing against the last napkin before he pitches it in the nearest garbage can. “Aise,” he says, not unpleasantly surprised; of all the former colleagues he could have run into on a day off, Aise Soffler - genuinely genial, utterly unduplicitous, easily leverageable - is far from the worst. 

“Roy!” Soffler pumps his hand heartily, grinning wide as he clasps Roy’s bicep and gives it a friendly shake; he gives no indication of having noticed the scars. “And here I was thinking I’d have to go all the way through Command to see you! How’ve you been, my boy?” 

“Very well, thank you,” Roy says, smiling back; Aise is a big man, expansive in all gestures, and responds well to some slight mirroring. “And yourself?” 

“Excellent, marvelous!” Soffler squeezes Roy’s bicep one last time, and then notices Edward. “And who is _this_ magnificent young creature?” 

Roy feels his expression freeze in place. General Roy Mustang is known to be seen around town with any number of beautiful people on his arm, many of them somewhat younger than him. Edward has his hair pinned up and back in a style that is nothing like the Fullmetal Alchemist’s trademark tail or braid but which would be, for example, just the thing for a university student out on a casual outdoor date. The lack of bangs in his eyes has also changed the planes of his face significantly. They are both out of uniform. And Aise’s from out of town.

Ed beside him has also gone still, head cocking just slightly. “This is Brigadier General Aise Soffler,” Roy says, trying to convey _he’s mostly harmless and his family controls all the freight transport west of Athenry_ with his eyes. “Aise, this is -”

“Hi!” Ed says brightly. “I’m Ed! Nice to meet you!” 

Roy has to blink and do a discreet check to make sure the sun is in fact still in the sky and gravity has not abruptly inverted itself. “How do you know Roy?” Ed continues, in a happy, chirpy tone Roy has heard from him literally never. “Oh - do you work together? In the military?” 

Roy wonders at what point he began hallucinating. There is no way that Edward Elric would pretend to be one of Roy’s dates - or rather what he must imagine Roy’s dates to be like - just to wind up some military officer -

Ohhhh yes he would. Roy is going to _strangle_ the brat the second Soffler is out of earshot. And this pointed airheadedness is not an insult to Roy but to those he keeps company with and he’s going to make sure Edward realizes it, probably in between rounds of strangling. 

“Yes indeed,” Soffler says happily, clapping Roy’s shoulder. “We worked together for a bit in East back when he was just a Lieutenant Colonel - before he got promoted all the way to Central, of course! Look at him now, eh?” 

He means it, too: Soffler is the rare man that does not resent some upstart dandy half his age who used to _sir_ him now sporting a full rank over his head. “It’s all thanks to those I’ve been lucky enough to serve with,” Roy says, mentally unscrewing the whiskey bottle. “How long are you in the city for?” He would have heard if Soffler had been transferred. 

“Oh, just the weekend - we’re here with the girls, Elan’s over with them by the carousel. I’m just fetching the ice cream,” Soffler says happily. Then he twinkles at Ed, in a distinctly paternal way that were they in a car would have sent Roy screaming for the handbrake. “A lovely day to be out, if I say so myself - almost as lovely as the company!” 

“It sure is,” Ed says earnestly instead of drawing a knife and inscribing his initials across Soffler’s forehead, which only makes Roy tenser. “It’s just so nice to be out with Roy! He’s always _sooo_ busy.” 

“Oh, well of course. He’s a State Alchemist, you know,” Soffler says, winking at Roy. The man thinks he’s doing him a favor. “One of the best.” 

“A _State Alchemist?”_ Ed says, his eyes enormous. _“Really?_ But isn’t that... like… dangerous?” 

“It’s the military, my dear,” Soffler says genially. “There’s always some risk. Don’t worry - Roy’s very capable, ey? Hero of Ishval!” 

_“Wow,”_ Ed says, doing a reasonable facsimile of starry-eyedness. It’s probably only Roy that finds the demonic, mocking glitter in there to be obvious. If he starts saying things like _gosh_ Roy might have to take drastic measures. 

“Gosh,” Ed says, not breaking eye contact. “He must be _really_ smart. I heard that exam is _so hard.”_

 _Not as hard as I’m going to take vengeance for this conversation,_ Roy valiantly doesn’t say. “It certainly took some studying,” he smiles instead, showing Ed teeth as he steps closer and slides a hand to the small of Ed’s back, a palmful of revenge. “Is alchemy something you’re interested in? I’ll show you a few tricks sometime, if you like.” 

_“Gosh,”_ Ed says again, baring teeth right back. “Would you really?” 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Soffler says, winking at Roy once again. “Try the ice cream at that little pink stand if you get a chance, Elan’s read reviews about their shop all the way in West - I’m off to get some myself, it’s supposed to be lifechanging! You two have a lovely time now, y’hear?” 

Soffler has barely disappeared into the crowd when Ed cracks, collapsing against Roy in hysterical laughter. “Oh my _gosh,_ mister big guy, mister _General,”_ he hoots, grabbing at Roy’s shoulder. Roy can’t think what to do besides steady him. “You didn’t tell me you were a _State Alchemist!”_ He runs his hand down Roy’s chest, unerringly jabbing a finger where the medals sit on his uniform jacket. “What do all these little shinies and color thingies mean? Is that a - _hee -_ is that a _hero medal_ in your pocket or are you just happy to see me -” 

He dissolves into fresh cackling, which doesn’t exactly preclude violence but doesn’t seem to be hostile all the same. Roy gives in, just a little. “Now, don’t be like that, darling,” he says. “I’d never be so crude.” 

“Oh _sure_ you wouldn’t,” Ed says, still plastered to Roy’s side snickering. “A big, _strong_ military man like you, oh, you’d _never_ take advantage.”

Roy’s not quite sure what possesses him to take two fingers and lift Ed’s chin, tilting his whole face up. “Only if they wanted me to.”

He watches Ed’s giggles trail off but the grin not diminish in the slightest, meeting Roy’s eyes head on. Roy holds his gaze, evaluating; with Fullmetal there’s no delayed reaction, so if he hasn’t thrown Roy yet he’s not going to. “You do realize being found attractive is not an insult, yes?” 

“He was being patronizing,” Ed says comfortably. “He didn’t think I was attractive, he thought I was a bimbo.” 

“And you played into his expectations,” Roy says, “in accordance with what you think of my dates.” 

Ed’s eyes narrow, grin finally fading. He’s never been slow on the uptake when Roy’s serious. “I don’t think they’re bimbos,” he says. “I think they’re crazy for putting up with you, but _bimbos_ only exist in the minds of those kindsa jackasses. You think I don’t know that? You should see Winry work a client when they’re being all oh you sweet young thing at her.” 

Roy huffs in amusement even as he has to resist the urge to rub Ed’s jaw in praise like he really is the dog he’s always half-joking about. “I hope you realize that should you encounter Brigadier General Soffler in a professional setting, you have set certain standards of behavior for yourself.” 

Ed takes Roy’s hand from his chin, but absentmindedly, the way he moves Roy’s coffee cup off a file he wants or Roy’s grip when he wants the cup itself. “Yeah, how _did_ he make General? The guy’s not, like, bright.” 

“Not everyone can identify flesh-eating alchemy demons on sight,” Roy says, which gets Ed grinning again. He’s still very close, chest nearly pressed to Roy’s shoulder, and despite the preening he’s still looking expectant; Roy sighs. “The Soffler family are shipping magnates who own the most property in West after the state itself. Aise is a reasonable man who dotes on his family and develops a soft spot for any soldier who passes through his command. West could do worse than have him helming things.” 

“Ah-huh. So who’s _really_ running West?” 

“His stepsister,” Roy says dryly. “Who loves her brother dearly, and incidentally whose temperament I could best describe as ‘General Armstrong, only she prefers it when you _don’t_ see her as a threat’.” 

Ed considers this. “So, she’s you, only a lady. Why hasn’t she shown up in Central already and stuck a poker up yours somewhere painful until you signed a marriage contract?”

Roy rolls his eyes as though he hasn’t had to consider certain contingencies for if Claridy ever changes her mind on wanting nothing to do with anything outside of her province. “Luckily for everyone, she lacks what I believe you and Riza refer to as my ‘megalomaniac tendencies’.”

“So she’s happy sitting in West,” Ed concludes. “And she’s good at it, otherwise you would’ve gotten rid of her. And you’re keeping your wifey spot open for - I dunno, Drachma? Whoever Amestris ends up needing a super duper diplomatic dick alliance with most.” 

_“Wifey spot,”_ Roy manages, then is briefly overwhelmed by _dick alliance_ and then the sheer thought of marrying a Drachman. They hunt bears with knives up there and wear _fur underwear,_ he would end up cooked by his spouse on a spit. 

“Yeah, y’know. Madam President of Amestris and all.” Ed, meanwhile, looks almost like he’s about to put his chin on Roy’s shoulder and has apparently forgotten all about that conversation they once had in the pool, about whether it’s even the right thing for Roy to takr the fuhrership at all. “Gotta make sure it’s the right one for the job.” 

“There are some things in my life that don’t have to be dictated by political mercenarism,” Roy says, more firmly than he feels. While diplomatic alliance marriages have fallen out of fashion in most places, Drachma is one of the few where they most certainly have not; at least if he _does_ end up having to marry some befurred viking, he can be certain it’ll be for the greater good. Though he’s fairly confident that should things come to that, he’ll be able to convince Olivier to take up with a ‘sword maiden’ or whatever the hell combat euphemism she’d prefer for marriage. They’d respect her far more than him in any case. 

Ed keeps looking at him, gaze clear and direct, expression open and blank in that new way Roy is starting to see more and more on him. “But you would if you had to.” 

Roy doesn’t want to sigh again, but his exhale comes out low and slow anyway. Sometimes it feels like every year of his life multiplies by every cell in his body and combines in his skeleton to make every bone feel heavier than lead, and it always comes on so godsdamn suddenly. “Let’s not get into the things I would do if I had to.” 

“Yeah. ‘Cuz, like, fuckin’ yikes and all,” Ed agrees, but he’s stepping back and looking over towards the dessert vendors, releasing Roy from his gaze. 

Roy feels a relaxation in several minute muscle groups he hadn’t realized had gone tight, and he wishes not for the first time that instead of a baby face and a take-me-home-to-mama smile he’d been gifted with a rattlesnake stare instead. He’s not sure Ed’s aware of just what kind of effect he can have with his cut-glass yellow eyes. If Roy could make grown men feel like they’re losing braincells and perched on a tightrope with one not particularly hostile look, he would be using it to _much_ greater effect.

But then again, it’s not like Ed _doesn’t_ use it. 

“I’ll be nice to him,” Ed tosses back offhandedly, over his shoulder. “The Soffy-whatever guy. If I ever run into him. Since you think he’s decent and all.” 

“How magnanimous of you,” Roy says, but it’s more or less on autopilot. His gaze is caught by the sunlight dappling over the heavy knot of hair pinned up at the back of Ed’s head; there are little wisps at the bottom, escaping the rest to sway in the breeze and tickle over his nape. In this light his white overshirt is almost translucent, the lines of the black tank visible underneath. 

Ed makes people stupid. Like now. He wasn’t just talking, he was looking for something, and between his sudden debutante act and the subsequent questioning Roy wasn’t on the ball enough in real time to unravel what. He feels the ghostly warmth of Ed’s grip on him, the almost-press of Ed’s chest to his shoulder - was that on purpose? 

The idea that Edward has learned how to distract with his body is a terrifying one. Roy can feel where his fingertips raised Ed’s chin. He doesn’t know the last time he saw someone touch Ed uninvited and not come away regretting it; he has not heretofore examined his own growing proclivity for the same. For reaching out, putting his hand on a shoulder, an arm, an elbow. A game, he thought. A mathematically self-contained statement: teasing Fullmetal is fun. 

It _is_ fun. And Ed doesn’t snap and snarl anymore, but he’s always bit back, just hard enough, just on the edge of severing anything important. And now he grins as he does it, his laughter still open but only a fraction of what’s behind it on show. Like he himself does, Roy realizes. Exactly like. 

Ed has grown up, and Roy has not been watching himself. The answers to _what the hell_ here are not complicated: he just needs to get his damn head out of the fog and use the brains he does in fact have. If he finds _Ed_ opaque now, of all people - gods. He really needs to get a grip. 

“You mentioned dessert,” he says, distantly, feeling just the slightest bit removed from himself as he follows Ed’s gaze to what appears to be a deep-fried cookie stand. “What can I get you?” 

Ed’s grin back at him is a familiar thing, bright and quick and hungry; that, at least, isn’t difficult to read at all. _“Everything.”_

**Author's Note:**

> god what could it be roy what could it all mean

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